Communications technologies and uses have greatly changed over the last few decades. In the fairly recent past, copper wire technologies were the primary mechanism used for transmitting voice communications over long distances. As computers were introduced the desire to exchange data between remote sites grew for many purposes, such as those of businesses, individual users and educational institutions. The introduction of cable television provided additional options for increasing communications and data delivery from businesses to the public. As technology continued to move forward, digital subscriber line (DSL) transmission equipment was introduced which allowed for faster data transmissions over the existing copper phone wire infrastructure. Additionally, two way exchanges of information over the cable infrastructure became available to businesses and the public. These advances have promoted growth in service options available for use, which in turn increases the need to continue to improve the available bandwidth for delivering these services, particularly as the quality of video and overall amount of content available for delivery increases.
As the consumer electronics industry continues to mature, and the capabilities of processors increase, more devices have become available for public use that allow for the transfer of data between devices and more applications have become available that operate based on this transferred data. Of particular note are the Internet and local area networks (LANs). These two innovations allow multiple users and multiple devices to communicate and exchange data between different devices and device types. For example, personal computers, laptop computers and cell phones can all access a variety of media content providers to exchange data and/or receive services. With the advent of these devices and capabilities, users increasingly desire to receive a variety of services over these networks.
As the quantity of user devices, service options and providers increase, the desire to efficiently provide users with access to content will increase, and the need for efficient billing methods associated with such desired content is also expected to grow. One mechanism associated with mobile phones for merging billing with a user's desire to gain access to services and/or applications is Ericsson's Internet Payment Exchange (IPX). IPX is a business agreement which allows for mobile phone users and content providers to have a predetermined method for billing when content is requested by a mobile user. IPX can act as a broker that in turn reutilizes various protocols, e.g., simple object access protocol (SOAP), short message peer-to-peer (SMPP) protocol and MM7, between operators and content companies. For example, if a mobile user were to download a ring tone from a content provider that uses IPX, instead of going through a slow, somewhat manual method for requesting and authorizing payment for the ring tone, the mobile phone user could be billed on their monthly bill from their mobile operator for the downloaded ring tone from the content provider. Additionally, these systems often require that the operator implement a billing system, which typically has not been done for wireline customers as it has been done for mobile customers, e.g., IPX.
As can be expected with continued growth in the computer industry, the telecommunications industry and the entertainment industry, significant overlap between various product/service usage exists and this overlap is expected to increase. This overlap leads to the desire to allow different types of end user devices, e.g., personal computers, laptop computers using either wireless or wireline connections and mobile phones, to be able to access content from a plurality of content providers that are not necessarily the end user's service providers. This content could include audio, video on demand (VoD), ringtones, weather updates and the like. It can be expected that the end user will want the option for a plurality of easy to use, secure billing options to be available to him or her when requesting content from a content provider, particularly for low cost, repetitive content.
For example, consider a user that is surfing the Internet and wishes to read a newspaper which has an online per view subscription charge of two dollars, and that the only way to pay this per view subscription charge is through a VISA or MasterCard credit card. The amount of time and effort needed to fill in all of the required information fields, possibly repeatedly for both the credit card company and the newspaper company, is a lengthy process for a two dollar charge and, potentially, a short read time for the newspaper article of interest. Additionally, this payment scheme inflexibility assumes that the end user has a VISA or MasterCard credit card. From an end user's perspective, a simpler system with multiple, user selectable billing options is desirable. Also, from a content provider's point of view, payment flexibility and automation could increase the potential markets and customers which use their service. Moreover, such flexibility and automation could be applied to services other than the identification of payment method alternatives
Accordingly the exemplary embodiments described herein provide systems and methods for providing a plurality of payment/billing options to end users when requesting content for a device.